ActRight

“When are we going to wake up?”

This is a preview for a town hall tonight on MSNBC where Ted Cruz sits down with Chuck Todd in Buffalo, NY. Todd asks Cruz if he regrets calling McConnell a liar on the Senate floor, given that it …

SEC and #ExxonKnew activists also targeting the energy giant

Conservative campus takes a much different approach than the University of Texas at Austin.

The story of the week in the GOP nomination fight is all about organization. Ted Cruz has it, Donald Trump doesn’t, and so Cruz is not only vacuuming up every available delegate, he’s actually stacking Trump’s delegations with his own supporters. On April 1, Politico reported that more than 100 delegates are poised to break from Trump after the first ballot, and for Trump the picture is worsening every day. #ad#He’s losing every organizational battle, and his people on the ground seem woefully unprepared. By contrast, the Cruz campaign is emerging as a model of preparation and efficiency. Again and again, when state and local party decisions have to be made — when organization truly counts — the Cruz team is getting the job done. It’s a marvel. Or is it? While no one should discount Cruz’s organizational prowess, he’s not that good. One of the hidden stories of the 2016 GOP campaign is the extent to which Cruz is the beneficiary of years of local tea-party organizational effort. Activists have made a long and patient effort to both infiltrate the Republican party and build, in essence, a “shadow” party — a party within a party. RELATED: Ted Cruz Is Surging by Design The era of its mass rallies might be over, and the Tea Party label may have fallen out of fashion, but tea-party activists have built their own organizational base, and in many states it competes with or even dominates the traditional party structures. In other words, the Tea Party has its own “establishment” of politicians and activists, and it just might carry Cruz over the GOP finish line. Seven years after the legendary Rick Santelli rant that helped launch a movement, it’s increasingly clear what the Tea Party was and was not — and what it is and is not. It was a mass movement that mobilized voters who were angry at Obama and the Republican establishment. It was not a mass movement centered around constitutional conservatism. It is a new and likely enduring part of the Republican coalition. It is not poised to remake the party itself or to become a major player as a third party. The Tea Party is part of the GOP, but it will never become the GOP. The movement simply isn’t large enough. #share#With the benefit of hindsight, we can better evaluate the Tea Party’s popular high point, the halcyon days of huge rallies and soaring approval ratings. It was a constitutional protest movement, yes, but the emphasis was much more on “protest” than on the Constitution. While there were certainly many constitutional conservatives within the Tea Party, and there was large-scale renewed interest in constitutional governance, the Tea Party did not, in fact, transform the rank and file of the Republican base into true small-government conservatives. This reality was hard to see — at least for a time — because the actual tea-party candidates who challenged the GOP establishment often merged constitutional and populist themes in their rhetoric. If the message was “throw the bums out and restore the Constitution,” it was sometimes hard to discern which was the dominant motivation: tossing the bums, or restoring the Constitution. RELATED: Cruz Must Be the Anti-Trump Then along came Donald Trump, a man who decisively separated Republican populism from constitutional conservatism. He’s the “burn it down” candidate, the big-government “nationalist” who’d probably flunk a basic civics test. (He thinks that judges sign bills and that the president can execute cop-killers by executive order, for example.) He smashed the anti-establishment coalition into its component parts, leaving populists and constitutional conservatives glaring at each other across a yawning ideological divide. So far, the constitutional conservatives are less terrifying to so-called establishment-lane voters; thus, though they are fewer in number, they are more capable of building coalitions. Oh, and constitutional conservatives are far better organized. They’ve done the hard work of running for office, forming activist organizations (in the face of years-long IRS persecution), and lobbying legislators. This is Ted Cruz’s network, and seven years of hand-to-hand fights with Democrats and establishment Republicans have readied them for this moment. #related#In March, when I voted for Cruz in the Tennessee primary, I also had the opportunity to vote for individual delegates. I was familiar with most of Cruz’s slate. They were some of the state’s most outspoken and committed conservative activists — people who (for good and ill) have never backed down from a fight. While Trump certainly has his loyalists, his network simply can’t compare. While the outcome of the GOP nomination is still very much in doubt, I put Cruz in as a narrow favorite. In a fractured party, the victory is likely to go to the man and the movement who prepared to win, and Cruz and the constitutional-conservative movement have certainly prepared. The death of the Tea Party has been greatly exaggerated. — David French is a staff writer at National Review and an attorney.

Marco Rubio won Minnesota decisively on March 1, but the 17 delegates he was awarded are now up for grabs, free to vote for any candidate they like on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In a hotly contested Republican primary that looks increasingly likely to culminate in a contested convention this summer, those delegates will be critical. The battle for them is essentially throwing states such as Minnesota, which have already held their nominating contests, back into play as they elect delegates at state conventions. And Ted Cruz’s campaign, which has run circles around Donald Trump’s in the behind-the-scenes battle to elect friendly delegates from states that aren’t holding primaries or caucuses, is also a step ahead in the fight for the Rubio delegates who will be free to give him an extra boost on a first ballot at the convention.   #ad#Minnesota hasn’t elected its delegates yet, but the state’s Republican-party chairman, Keith Downey, is already steeling himself for blowback from Trump supporters if and when Cruz emerges from his state with the lion’s share of the delegates. “If somebody didn’t educate themselves on that process, or they weren’t very good at working through that process, so be it,” he says. “That’s life, and that’s politics.” Of the 171 delegates Rubio won before dropping out of the race, the 17 he took home in Minnesota, the twelve in Oklahoma, and the two he picked up in New Hampshire are now free agents. In Minnesota and Oklahoma, Rubio’s delegates are obligated only to cast a ballot for him if he is formally nominated, while in New Hampshire they’re entirely unbound. RELATED: Why Cruz Is the Likely Choice at the Convention “Our state rules say if someone is not on the ballot, they are free to vote for whomever they choose,” Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard told NBC News. Cruz won Oklahoma handily on March 1, but Rubio also received twelve delegates for his third-place showing. A Cruz campaign aide says the team has mounted a “very aggressive effort” to win over delegates in every state, including Minnesota and Oklahoma. A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment about its efforts on the ground in the two states.  Since both Minnesota and Oklahoma have yet to choose their delegates, they offer the campaigns fertile ground to rack up new supporters. Cruz is taking advantage of the opportunity. Jeff Johnson, who served as Rubio’s campaign manager in Minnesota but has since endorsed Cruz, says that much of Rubio’s organization in the state has mobilized behind Cruz, helping his campaign as it works to woo delegate candidates. “That organization is still in place, we’re just kind of adding to it,” he says of Rubio’s infrastructure in the state. “We’re joining.” RELATED: Why a Contested Convention Favors Cruz In both states, delegates will be chosen through a series of congressional-district conventions held over the next month and a half before a final convention in May. The elaborate process will benefit campaigns that have extensive, well-established statewide organizations — organizations that several state Republican officials say only the Cruz campaign possesses. Minnesota GOP officials say the Cruz campaign is working to win over delegates, with a particular focus on those who are unbound. “There have been a number of people, either via e-mail or at [local] conventions, campaigning specifically to be a national Cruz delegate,” says Chris Tiedeman, the state’s Republican national committeeman. “And there have been a number of them going to other conventions, other than their own local convention, to start campaigning for those spots now.” #share#As it was in Colorado and North Dakota, which both elected unbound slates of delegates favorable to Cruz after forgoing primaries and caucuses entirely, it appears that the Trump campaign is being outmaneuvered on the ground in Oklahoma and Minnesota. Several Minnesota GOP officials say they don’t know who is leading the pro-Trump effort in their state, and Tiedeman says there’s little to suggest the real-estate mogul is doing anything to secure  unbound delegates there. “That doesn’t mean it’s not happening, but I haven’t seen it anywhere I’ve been,” he says. “And I’ve been out and about quite a bit.” RELATED: Trump and Cruz: A Tale of Two Campaigns, One of Which Is Competent There’s a small chance Rubio could bind Minnesota and Oklahoma delegates to him on a first ballot — that is, in the unlikely event his name appears on the ballot. But even if one assumes that the RNC’s Rule 40(b) is amended to place Rubio in contention, Rubio supporters say it’s still unlikely he will appear on the ballot. (The rules currently require a candidate to secure a petition featuring the signature of a majority of the delegates from eight states in order to be nominated, and Rubio won only four states and territories.) That’s because collecting the signatures of a majority of the delegates in the required number of states would take a strong, organized effort on the ground in Cleveland, and Rubio is unlikely to pull it off. #related#According to one longtime RNC member, “Just because you won a state doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have enough people in that delegate slate signing your petition. It’s a matter of high panic even when you’re Mitt Romney or George W. Bush.” It’s simply not something a non-candidate such as Rubio will do, he says, because, “Getting the petitions is still a pain in the ass and an uncertain prospect.” “It’s not going to happen,” says Johnson, Rubio’s Minnesota campaign chairman. Rubio himself tipped his hand for the first time this week about which candidate he’d like to see win the nomination. Though he stopped short of an official endorsement, he told radio talk-show host Mark Levin Tuesday that he wants a conservative nominee and that Cruz is the only candidate left who “fits the criteria.” In a nail-biter, his delegates may help deliver Cruz the prize.  — Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review. Eliana Johnson is the Washington editor of National Review.

Brandon Lerry used the $2500 his school gave him for textbooks and other school supplies

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz blasted New York's fracing ban on Thursday, saying "knucklehead Democratic politicians" in the state were behind the...

In case I haven't made myself clear, I do not like Donald Trump and I'm never, ever going to vote for him. His nomination will destroy the Republican Party, if he hasn't done so already (to which I sa

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blazed headlines when he declared that "the Drudge Report has become the attack site for the Donald Trump campaign" earlier in the week. While Matt Drudge fired back with his usual snarky headlines, there is no question that Cruz is correct: Drudge is in the tank for Trump.

Corporations are always and everywhere owned by individuals, and those individual owners pay all corporate taxes.

The “men” of the millennial generation have tried with all their might to kill off what’s left of masculinity, bringing us man buns, male feminists, gender neutral clothing and a slew of men made in the image of

Donald Trump loves the Bible. He knows the Bible, that he can tell you, frankly. Except that all the things Trump knows about the Bible can conveniently fit into a thimble. Trump isn’t just ignorant about the Bible. He is apocalyptically ignorant. WHAM 1180 AM host Bob Lonsberry asked Trump to name his “favorite Bible verse or Bible story that has informed your thinking or your character through life.”

Activists were cleared from a building by officials who claimed that they were making university employees feel scared.

Not exactly what GOP strategists looking to broaden the party's appeal had hoped for.

http://www.fee.org Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, reads two articles by the great thinker Lawrence Reed. Freedomain Radio is the largest and most...

To Watch the Entire Free to Choose series: http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com/p/free-to-choose.html Website: http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com...

Give Donald Trump credit for planning ahead. He is preparing to be a sore loser.

While many of us were sleeping, Trump was fevered tweeting again about Colorado. Now he’s saying Colorado intentionally changed the rules and disenfranchised voters after he announced his can…

Kasich thinks conservatives, not the Left, are the problem.

"We can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you."

The much-vaunted Trump pivot appears to be upon us: .@realDonaldTrump: “I believe strongly in policy. I believe strongly in being smart.” #Hannity pic.twitter.com/bFeNVtdWjO — Fox News (@FoxNews) April 14, 2016  

When Nebraska started the process of picking delegates, Trump’s campaign was nowhere to be found.

It’s always easier to destroy than to create. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has spent his candidacy showing Republicans just how easy it is. Media organizations, think tanks, and the electoral process itself have seen decades of hard work reversed in months by Wreck-It Donald. Consider this partial accounting of the wreckage he’s left behind, starting with Fox News: During a…

Share on Facebook 1 1 SHARES After telling everyone his thoughts on ?Two Corinthians? and declaring that no one reads the Bible as much as he does, Republican front-runner Donald Trump continues to show the intellectual fruits of taking seminary classes at Trump University. Here?s the latest incoherent theological musings of The Donald via Andrew Kaczynski at Buzzfeed who pulled the clip from Bob Lonsberry?s show | Read More